1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique in which multiple placement heads pick up components from a pallet, and place the components on a circuit board located in one direction with respect to the pallet.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a component placement apparatus, in which a placement head, which moves between a component pickup position and a component placement position, picks up a component located at a component supply position (component pickup position), transports and places the component on a circuit board at the component placement position, it is necessary to generate in advance a component placement setting, such as a mounting position on a component supply tray (hereinafter, referred to as a “pallet”) of a component supply unit storing component to be placed on the circuit board, components pickup sequencing by the placement head, and placement sequencing.
By way of example, “An algorithm of feeder arrangements and pickup sequencing of component placement machine of printed circuit board, Tsuyoshi Yamada, Ryuhei Miyashiro, and Mario Nakamori, IPSJ (Information Processing Society of Japan) SIG Technical Report, 2005-MPS-55(3), pp. 9-12, Jun. 28, 2005, hereinafter referred to as “non-patent document 1”, discloses a technique to calculate a component placement setting in a component placement machine under the condition that the component placement machine is provided with only one placement head and there is no possibility that multiple placement heads access simultaneously the circuit board and the pallet that is arranged in one direction with respect to the circuit board.